Each issue of the paper will have a few Loose Themes as prompts that artists can use as a jumping off point, but as a rule the paper will not reject pieces for not perfectly lining up with an issue’s themes. In fact, the themes of a given issue will never be explicitly stated to the public, but will only serve as inspiration for our contributors.

However artists interpret and interact, or don’t interact, with the themes is entirely up to the individual :)

The theme prompts for the first issue are:

• The Beats (writers and poets like Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs, Ruth Weiss, Richard Brautigan, Diane DiPrima, Gary Snyder, et cetera)

• Aliens (and space in general)

• Television (TV as an art medium, behind the scenes, the physical machine, shows you like, whatever)

Hopefully there’s a lot there to inspire our contributing artists! We’re stoked to see how people take these prompts (or don’t) and build something new and weird and uniquely them to contribute!

What’s Allowed / Not Allowed

Our goal for the paper is that it will be accessible to everyone, but our target demographic is 13+, and we will communicate that on the front cover of the paper.

We have very few guidelines on subject or theme, but there are a few hard rules.

• No Hate Speech. We do not accept work that denigrates any protected classes, or promotes hate of any kind.

• No Excessive Cursing. Some colorful language is allowed, but please keep it to a minimum. Better yet, self-censor with comic cussing (#@$%!), or explore alternative text whenever possible.

• No Graphic Sexual or Obscene Acts. Again, there are degrees. Tasteful nudity, or comical nudity, may be allowed, as well as some bodily-function gags, within reason. If something would be too grotesque for 90’s era Liquid Television or Ren & Stimpy, it probably won’t fly here, but you can touch that line and still get your work accepted. Sexual themes in poetry and fiction are allowed, but can’t be too explicit or go into excessive detail.

• No Extreme Violence. This is the most difficult rule to qualify, as we do allow stories with violence and physical conflict. Cartoonish violence, even over-the-top examples like One Punch Man, are allowed, as are dramatic portrayals of conflict like you might see in a western or martial arts film, and horror stories like Tales From the Crypt or Junji Ito stories. With violence, it’s mostly about tone. We do not allow depictions of extreme shock-value violence like you might see in the comic Red Room, or in gore comics like Panorama of Hell, and works portraying sexual violence will not be accepted. For fiction and poetry, most things short of splatter-punk would likely be eligible for publication.

• Nothing Explicitly Political. As a nonprofit, there are guidelines for what we can do in the political space while maintaining our nonprofit status. Even though we have the ability as a nonprofit to display political art in our gallery space (and plan to!), we have been advised that mass distributing political comics and written works could be interpreted as propaganda, and that doing so may jeopardize our nonprofit status.

• No Inclusion of Real People Without Their Consent. Some folks like to make comics about their real life, or fictionalized stories of public figures. While we enjoy these kinds of comics, they come with potential liability. If you include real people in your comics, you will need to provide signed consent forms from those individuals to have your comic included in the paper.

If you have a piece of work that you want to contribute but are unsure about, just submit it and we’ll have a conversation about it. Our focus as a nonprofit is to help as many artists as possible to finish and distribute work, and even if something isn’t a great fit for Hooplah, it doesn’t mean that we don’t want to help you find your audience (spoiler alert, we do!).